Unlikely Allies
by The Norveyan
Summary: Caught in the aftermath of the Resonance Cascade at the Black Mesa Facility, Gordon Freeman finds himself caught in between marauding aliens and a government cover-up. As he tries to escape, he finds himself in the company of an unlikely friend.
1. Chapter 1

This is the first in what might turn into a series of adventures involving Gordon and a marine named Fisher. I've always wanted to do an adaptation of Half Life, but the Gameplay is so repetitive in some places, just shoot, and solve puzzle, shoot and solve puzzle, that I don't think I'll ever do a full write through. Instead I might just do significant moments like the tentacle monster, the tram ride and such.

**Unlikeliest of Friends**

"**Hello"**

Gordon Freeman carefully stalked down yet another long grey corridor buried deep within the Black Mesa facility. In his hand he uncertainly held an M4 rifle he had pilfered from the body of one of the dead soldiers he had killed.

Yes, soldiers that he had killed. Gordon Freeman, PhD in Theoretical Physics from MIT, was now Public Enemy Number One, assuming the public was a government cover-up unit sent in to silence the entire bloody Black Mesa team. And frankly, Gordon wasn't so sure that they all didn't deserve it. Seriously, had no one thought of putting guard rails on catwalks crossing twenty story drops?

But he was right now more concerned with staying alive and getting away than anything else.

So therefore, M4 tightly clutched in his hands, he walked down the long grey dirty concrete corridor, turned a corner, and came face-to-face with a head crab. Presuming they had faces of course.

Moving faster than he had ever imagined just a few hours ago, he dodged suddenly to the left and with a swing of the rifle butt, smashed the screeching alien parasite to the ground. Dazed, the blobby little thing didn't have time to jump up again before a hail of bullets ripped it to shreds, spraying the grimy floor with thick yellow blood.

Ok, that was close, again.

Breathing heavily, Gordon stood there for a moment, frozen in a shooting position, before slowly retracting himself back into a walking position. Then, he carefully wheeled around and began walking back down the corridor towards a door about twenty feet away.

_Of all the days to leave my helmet behind, this has got to be the worst_ He mentally despaired. Normally he took it with him to every test he was involved in, but this one seemed so routine that he just left it behind. They weren't testing any deadly radiation or chemicals, just analyzing a sample.

Gordon would have preferred testing deadly radiation or chemicals.

Letting a flood of alien monsters pour in through spontaneous teleporting events after you royally screwed an experiment was not the best time to leave your helmet behind.

Oh well, what's done is done.

The scientists boots made a dull clomping noise as they stepped down on the drab dirty concrete. Reaching the end of the corridor, Gordon opened the small door at the end slowly and carefully, recent experiences had taught him that slow and steady really wins after all.

Peeking in through a crack, Gordon saw his subtlety had payed off. Just two feet in from the back of the door, Gordon saw the familiar sight of a thin ghostly blue beam sticking before him. A quick glance to the right confirmed the presence of an army trip mine.

With a smile, Gordon slid inside the hall and ducked down under the pale blue band flickering before his eyes. Simple work after some experience.

Passing under it, Gordon popped back up with a smile and slinging his rifle confidently over his shoulders, he sauntered around the corner.

Well, where there's smoke there's fire.

Gordon waltzed around and practically ran into a group of big and mean looking soldiers standing around and talking into a radio. As his heart leaped, he swung his rifle forward as he fell to the floor on account of the three soldiers seeing him immediately and snapping their weapons forward. But Gordon was already firing.

The room exploded into an incoherent hail of thunder claps as four automatics went off all at once in an enclosed hall. Gordon could feel the wind of the bullets ruffle his hair as he fell to his back, shooting as he went.

The first two took about half a dozen bullets per leg and dropped like rocks with agonized screams. The third seemed about ready to fire on the prone Gordon, when the oddest thing happened. Just as the physicist was about to put a hole through the soldiers head, the man's own weapon lowered and with two loud cracks, finished the pair of wounded soldiers off.

Gordon's gun and jaw lowered at the odd site as the soldier finished the favor off by dropping the rifle on the floor and kicking it over to the stunned scientist. The weapon skidded over to his bloody HEV clad feet as the soldier slowly raised his hands in the air.

Gordon wasn't quite sure what to do. Part of him, a darker part that had come alive in the last day, urged him to take advantage of this turn of events and gun the helpless man down. But another part of him, his natural curiosity, urged him to see why this man had turned on his own? He was obviously fidgeting in his choice, for the marine held his hands high and tried to calm him down.

"Hey don't shoot, don't shoot. I'm on your side." He spoke in the way one would calm a high-strung tiger. It worked, Gordon wasn't a natural killer. He lowered the gun to his side and spoke the only words that were in his mind.

"Why aren't you- Why did yo- what are you-?" The man held up a muscular arm in a silencing gesture before sticking it out in an aggressive greeting. He was clearly aware that Gordon wouldn't shoot him now.

"Fisher, Corporal Jonathan Fisher. I'm not with those guys," He jerked a thumb towards the crumpled bodies on the floor behind him. "At least not anymore I ain't." Gordon automatically thought to correct him about using not and ain't together, but thought better of it. Instead, he timidly offered his own hand to this Corporal Fisher who grabbed it and gave it a hearty shake.

A little too hardy maybe, Gordon tried not to wince. Retrieving his hand, Gordon took a cautious step backwards meanwhile giving the odd soldier a more cautious look.

"So, why aren't you trying to kill me? And the rest of us?" He asked warily. Fisher answered the question without a moment of hesitation.

"Because I don't believe in this whole cover-up bull shit. If it is our government ordering this whole fiasco, then I'm out. That's not the government I signed up to serve." His gaze drifted up to the roof, then back down towards Gordon.

Gordon then realized how tall the man was. Fisher looked back down at the physicist and kept talking. "But personally, I think some shmuck in a suit lined the CO's pockets to help keep his own record clean. Politicians, never trust 'em." He said with disgust. Then, as if noticing Gordon for the first time, he inquired curiously. "Hey, you're that Freeman fellah aren't you? You were at ground zero when this crap began?

Gordon's heart began to beat, they knew his name? How the hell would he ever live through this now? Even if he got out in one piece he was still on the most wanted list. Fearfully, he nodded his head, expecting the man to rip him apart then and there.

However he just let out a slight chuckle. He thought this was funny? "You've sure stirred up the hornets' nest up there! They've assigned two platoons to take you down!" Two platoons? Gordon didn't know what a platoon was or how many med it had, but it didn't sound good. He felt the blood drain from his face, paling him significantly. This brought another amused response from his new companion. "Ah Don'tcha worry, we stick together and there's nothing that can stop us!"

Stick together? Gordon hadn't really thought about it, pairing up with this marine. But it didn't seem like the worst idea. After all, what's the worst that could happen?

He could be back stabbed, back shot, left for dead or taken to the military base for 'questioning.' So it was not without risks. But what were his other options? Plow on alone and try to fight his way through the nightmares around him? He had been pretty lucky so far, and he was getting pretty sure his luck was almost out.

He pushed his glasses up his nose; he should have gotten the damned things fixed before coming to work today, or was it yesterday this had all started?

"You comin' Freeman?" Fisher's inquisitive voice broke through his mental tangent. Looking up, Gordon found himself nodding rapidly to the big soldier.

"Yeah, yeah I'll come." This just made the man's day; he gave Gordon a hearty slap on the back which actually triggered his HEV suit.

_Warning. Impact detected._ "Great! Then let's strip these guys for clips and go!" He immediately bent down and attended to the gruesome task of stripping the dead soldiers for ammunition, leaving Gordon just standing there speechless. Not that being speechless was uncommon for the naturally quiet physicist. Trying to think of something to say, he pushed up his glasses out of habit and managed to stutter out something.

"Um, so are you, um, well I mean, do you uh-uh." This bought him a confused look from behind the gas mask of Fisher.

"Freeman?" He addressed.

"Yes?"

"Are you trying to say something?"

"Um, yes."

"Then say it for god's sake man!" He then went back to patting down the bloody corpse before him while Gordon looked around uncertainly for something to say something about. His searching eyes drifted to the floor and lit up.

"Ok, do you uh, do you, you know, want your gun back?" Fisher looked back up from his pilfering to see the unsure scientist awkwardly holding his M4 in his left hand. He took it without hesitation and checked it over for any damage. Satisfied there was none, he gave Gordon a friendly nod.

"Thanks Freeman, thank you very much. See, talking ain't too hard. Oh, catch." He flicked his hand abruptly sending a pair of small metal thing flying at Gordon's face. His hand's shot up and snatched them to his chest immediately. He checked his catch and found them to be ammunition clips for his rifle; he quickly clipped these onto the magnetic belt around his HEV suit next to his crowbar. He looked up to see Fisher nodding his approval.

"Nice reflexes, and by the way do you want this? This guy sure won't be needing it." Gordon saw him holding a very sharp and cruel looking knife in his hand. Pulling his crowbar from the magnetic belt at his side Gordon waved the tool at his new companion with a grin.

"Nope, I'm good. Got this right here." He referred to the tool/weapon clutched in his gloves. However this bought him a strange look from Fisher.

"A crowbar? Really?" The tone in which he said it made Gordon suddenly question the efficiency of the chunk of iron that he sustained him through thick and thin. He looked at it, then at Fisher with a worried look.

"Yeah, you know, to hit stuff with." He explained half-heartedly. But Fisher didn't pursue the topic and just let it drop with shrug, like Gordon was mentally unbalanced. He slid the knife into a sheath on his belt before standing up and pulling off the gas mask.

"I'm not with 'em any longer, no point dressing like them." He said, voice sounding much less garbled without it before tossing the mask to the gritty concrete. Gordon noticed his face, square-ish and almost seeming too big for his helmet. Piercing blue eyes were embedded beneath his forehead and above them tufts of blonde hair stuck out from beneath his helmet. He gave Gordon a confident smile before turning down the hallway, gun in his hands. "Come on Freeman, let's go!"

Gordon smiled, maybe this wasn't so bad after all. He seemed like a nice guy, and he seemed like he knew what he was doing. But then,

"And ditch that crowbar, take a real weapon!" Gordon's smile vanished as he walked off after him, affectionately patting the crowbar at his side. That idiot could keep his stupid knives, they'd see who had the best choice soon enough.

(Review, reviews please)


	2. No, you can't

(I hope this works out well enough, I like this! I don't have to write this big huge long chapters spanning entire game levels, merely the fun parts and some stuff in between. And of course I can write them in half an hour, it's fun!)

**Unlikeliest of Friends**

"**No, you can't"**

"No, you can't have it. Now please leave me alone about it!" Gordon Freeman's voice was rarely this aggravated; usually when someone was getting on his nerves he could just tune them out or due something else. This was a skill he had mastered quickly and perfected while working under Doctor Magnusson.

But in this case it wasn't as simple as merely going to work on some sub-atomic relationship equations. Nor could he just quietly edge out of the room or wait for Doctor Kleiner of Eli Vance to come to his aid.

And he doubted either of them would be able to do much against Fisher anyway.

"Come on Freeman, I'm the trained professional here and I think I should be the best equipped of us. And I know you've done well enough alone-"

"That's stating the obvious." Gordon muttered under his breath.

"-but there's no need for you to be the hero now, I'm here! Me, Corporal Fisher of the United States Marine Corps. And I'm saying you really should give me that gun!"

Gordon sighed at the futility of the situation. He had known Fisher for just ten minutes and already the man was envious of Gordon, or to be more precise, envious of his gun.

It was just a grimy silver revolver he had found on a deceased security guard, hardly worth a second look. Gordon was about to pass it over when he saw Fisher's eyes light up when they saw it. Taking that as a good sign, Gordon had snatched it up before the marine could take it, replacing the Glock pistol with it.

It's usefulness cam into play about two seconds later when one of the head crab zombies came ambling out of a room, moaning like the damned. Leveling his new gun, Gordon took careful aim for the head and fired.

Two things unexpected happened. One was that the gun exploded in his hands and flew backwards, smacking him on the forehead with the barrel. The second thing was the head of the zombie exploded. The bullet was apparently a lot better than the pistol he's used previously and had taken the entire headcrab off along with a significant portion of the head itself.

This had done little to satisfy Fisher's desire for the overpowered handgun. So Gordon had been enduring these endless pleads to get his new toy.

Sweet mercy, he was calling a gun a toy now.

"Bottom line is, I'm better with it than you." Gordon blew at his hair in frustration; there was really no end to this guy! But he kept silent and kept moving. This did nothing, and Fisher wheeled around in front of his scientist friend like a salesmen chasing a disinterested customer. Gordon was amused at the desperation evident in his voice as he sunk to lower and lower levels of pathetic trying to strike a bargain.

"Come on, look I'll _buy _it off yah, what do you want for it? Here, I'll give you…" His voice trailed off as his hand darted towards his pants pocket for a non-existent wallet. Fisher realized this was a pained look.

Acting like a starving orphan asking for another piece of bread, he pleaded. "Ok so I don't have any money on me _now, _but I'll pay ya back for it I will! I always fulfill my debts!"

Gordon rolled his eyes at this. "That's what Barney said." He muttered.

Fisher was aiming for new levels of low as he grabbed Gordon's armored hand, despair evident in his blue eyes.

"Look man, I swear to God I will-" He never finished his sentence for at that moment Gordon suddenly grabbed him and shoved him to the left while he kneeled, aimed and fired the revolver twice.

The gun's twin thunder claps broke Fisher's mood thankfully as he grabbed his own rifle in a blur to aim for the threat.

Nothing was there except for a bullsquid with half of its head splattered on the wall. It's toxic, corrosive spit bubbled out of its mouth and reacted with the drab concrete floor, hissing as it dissolved the cement at an atomic level.

Fisher was white faced in shaky as he cast a look first to the dead alien, then to Gordon, then to the dead alien, and then to Gordon's gun.

The Physicist merely smiled at his friend.

"Did you want something?" Fisher continued to stare at him and the smoking pistol before casting the scientist an evil glare. Then standing up, he dusted himself off, a useless gesture due to the blood stains on his combat fatigues, and marched off in a dignified manner despite his obvious embarrassment.

Gordon had and showed no sympathy for his humiliated companion, letting out only the slightest of chuckle before snapping the heavy pistol to his side and strolling off after his friend.

Besides, he'd always hated salesmen.

(Next chapter will probably be part of a game level, though I'll have to go through one of the levels and figure out what happens in it, I'm pretty foggy on the game

Reviews please!)


	3. Watcha Doing?

_For those of you who are noticing, yes I am writing all of this so far in between levels and scenes in the levels, namely for some character development which is otherwise bloody difficult to fit in Half- Life._

**Unlikeliest of Friends**

"**Watcha doing?"**

The last ten minutes had been rather uneventful, as uneventful as an alien apocalypse could be of course. They had only run across a few of the alien creatures which had been swiftly dealt with although a pair of zappers, those electricity-shooting aliens, had given them a few tense moments.

Fisher was leading now, confident that he knew the way to the surface. He was claiming that he and his squad had traveled down here by the means of a big cargo elevator which should be capable of carting them up to the surface, granted they didn't die en-route.

Gordon still had no idea what on earth he was going to do if they ever reached the surface though. When your own government wants to silence you, though Fisher still stubbornly clung to the idea that this was the result of some rich bureaucrat, you didn't exactly have a lot of options.

As he paced down the concrete hall, Fisher in front or as he put it, "on point," Gordon really just couldn't help but wonder how the rest of his life was going to turn out. Would he really be on the run for the rest of his life, evading a shadowy government figure?

He had no idea, but he probably wouldn't get out of here in one piece so it probably didn't really matter anyway. _First things first Gordon, get out alive and then worry about staying alive. _He mentally reprimanded himself. _Of course you probably won't get out of here, especially with this gun-totting lunatic! In fact I'll probably end up getting killed when he does something stupid and masculine like-Oof!_

The _oof _was the direct result of a mentally of track Gordon walking right into the tankish mass of man that composed Fisher. That man in particular had stopped in dead stride, kneeled and with his rifle held in one hand while his left was raised in a halting signal.

Jeepers, even _kneeling _Gordon was just barely taller than him! What on earth were they feeding these guys back at their camps?

"Gordon, I said _be quiet!" _Fisher hissed in irritation. Gordon suddenly realized he must have gotten so far off course in his head that he had accidently tuned out his friend.

Magnusson had trained him well.

Silently cursing his ignorance, Gordon backed up and kneeled down while trying to peek over the big marines shoulder. That turned out to be a lost cause, so he tried looking around him instead.

He didn't see anything, just another drab concrete wall that signified yet another turn down yet another corridor. Then he noticed Fisher craning his head to one side, as if trying to hear something. Gordon was quick to copy that and leaned forward, ear's straining to hear something.

Nothing, just the sounds of his breathing and the humming of his HEV suit, all magnified in the silence of the corridor. He frowned, was his friend starting to hear things-

"_Man, this job sucks." _The garbled, crackling voice of a soldier broke the silence like bomb and nearly gave Gordon a start. Fisher held up silencing hand, waiting for them to continue.

"_Yeah, killing a bunch of stupid scientists ain't what I signed up for." _Gordon's hoped raised a bit, was there someone like Fisher ahead?

"_Tell me 'bout it, though some of those security guards can fight."_

"_Nah, they're still too easy. I could take on ten of 'em in my sleep, like shooting babies."_

"_It's good target practice though; I've never seen the targets at the range squirm like that."_

"_Heh, yeah those little pukes couldn't shoot a gun if their lives depended on it. Poor them huh?" _

Gordon's hopes were smashed as if with a crowbar as they laughed callously at the cruel joke. How many of these soldiers were so heartless, and if so what was the chance Fisher was as genuine as he seemed? He cast his marine companion an uncertain look.

All he saw was cold disgust for the heartless men, and the physicist cringed at the fearful sight. Ice-blue eyes narrowed in contempt and mouth gritted, he suddenly made a flurry of hand signals to Gordon which would have made sense to any other trained marine.

Gordon opened his mouth in a silent _uh _for a moment before tapping his friend on the shoulder. Fisher was already tensed up and whipped around like a striking cobra, gun raised. Gordon suddenly felt the cold metal barrel pressing into his exposed neck and gave the marine a frantic look.

Fisher realized his mistake and his eyes immediately spoke apology. He quickly withdrew his gun, cringing like the scientist might strike him dead. It really struck Gordon how quickly the man could change from cold killer to an apologetic offender or a carefree hooligan.

Hooligan? He had _definitely _spent too much time around Doctor Kleiner.

"What is it?" Fisher was barely whispering and Gordon had to really listen hard to catch it before explaining himself.

"Oh, um I don't get the hand signals, what are you trying to say?" Fisher sighed and rephrased his idea in am ore vocal manner.

"Ok, I'm going to walk down there like I am, they'll think I'm one of them and leave me alone. I'll try to get them to look the other way and when they do, I'll need you to pop 'em in the back. Got it?"

Shoot them in the back? Gordon got an uneasy feeling, killing them was bad enough for him but to kill them while they were unaware just seemed _wrong. _Fisher apparently had no such qualms for he gave the ethically challenged physicist a friendly nod, like a teenager about to TP a house, before preparing to slip around the corner.

A weight tugging as his side though suddenly brought an idea to life. Gently grabbing the marines shoulder to stay him, he reached down to his side and picked off an all-too familiar metal sphere and held it up to Fisher's face with a 'Would this work' expression.

Fisher's eye lit up with shock and then joy at the sight of the grenade, and he quickly snatched it from Gordon's hands. Quivering with anticipation, he pulled the pin with a metallic ring and waited two seconds before dodging out of cover and lobbing it down the hall before diving back to safety.

The soldiers never saw him, and only the metallic clink notified them of their dooms presence. Gordon heard a confused "What the hell?" Followed by a thunderous explosion as the device detonated in a flash of heat, light and shrapnel, all magnified by the enclosed concrete room. The explosion died away quickly while the ringing in his ears not so much.

Fisher was unaffected by it, for he let out a slight whoop of victory and an air-punch before jumping to his feet, completely lacking any remorse for the two people he had just killed. He quickly swung around the corner to check out their success.

Gordon also got up, not as enthusiastically as the marine, and simply pushed his glassed up before almost trudging around the corner.

The hall was short, leading into a medium sized concrete room full of crates and crate remains.

And a pair of burning and mangled corpses.

Gordon fought an urge to vomit over the atrocity; he had to get out of there. Tying his best to not look at the people he had killed, he speed-walked to the end of the room while holding his breathe, the stench of burnt flesh was one he never wanted to smell again.

He was out in the opposing hall now; he collapsed back against a corner, breathing heavily. He couldn't help but feel such awful despair, and why not? His friends were either dead or going to die. Eli and Doctor Kleiner both still stuck down in Anomalous Materials, Barney probably doing god-knows what.

And Gordon? Gordon was no longer a scientist, he was a killer. A murderer. Those soldiers he'd killed, they'd all have families. Parents, brothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends, friends who would never see them again because they dead and they were dead because Gordon had killed them. Had killed them all.

"Come on Freeman, no time to drag your heels, let's go!" The ever gung-ho voice of Fisher rang out behind him as he strode quickly beside him, obviously he was finished his pillaging. Gordon immediately straightened up, pushed up his glasses out of habit and headed off behind the marine. Time for self-despair would come, and when he stopped moving enough for it all to hit him he would probably need a physcologist

Rifle clung tightly in his hands; Gordon cautiously tailed the big marine who was keeping a careful eye on all the possible threats about him. It was definitely nice to have Fisher around, both for the help and for the company. Maybe it was just him, but Gordon wasn't very particular about meandering aimlessly around this gigantic alien-infested facility alone.

Speaking of which, Gordon suddenly found himself with his gun up and pointed ahead of him as Fisher's rifle thundered off several rounds at a pair of houndeyes which had just appeared in front of them. Wide-eyed, Gordon kept his rifle trained at the corpses ahead of him, waiting for any more.

None came, so Gordon saw it fit to run ahead and check out an abandoned office up ahead. He cautiously opened the door, stepped inside and braced for the worst.

Nothing was dead, nothing jumped at him. No danger at all, good. Gordon smiled and checked the place out.

The whole place was pretty trashed, understandable in these circumstances. The desk was covered in a mess of administrative papers, pencils and other office material. A shelf was tipped over on one side, spilling its content of books all over the floor. Gordon naturally tried to avoid stepping on these articles of literature although it was the least of his worries right now.

He began investigating the desk, pulling out drawers and looking for anything useful.

"Freeman, watcha doing there?" Gordon looked up to see Fisher looking at him inquisitively through the shattered window before explaining his purpose.

"Oh, I'm just looking for anything useful." This brought an amused look to the marines face.

"Like what, a stapler to replace your crowbar?" He smirked as he nodded toward the battered tool on Gordon's waist. The physicist in question merely rolled his eyes at this and pulled open another drawer. To his surprise and utter delight, he discovered a pair of luminous blue batteries, Black Mesa All-Purpose Batteries to be exact, made essentially as an all-around handy device for powering anything involving electricity for the convenience of Black Mesa's employees.

This included Gordon and his HEV suit. With a smile, he snapped open a small port on his chest and snaked out a small cord from inside its compartment. With a wordless grin at the now irked Fisher, he plugged it into the battery and turned around to fully face Fisher as he began to charge his suit.

There was a pleasant humming sound coming from his suit as it filled up with energy. Gordon closed his eyes and breathed out a relaxed sigh, it just felt good to get a good charge. The first battery ran out of juice pretty fast, as did the second. His suit beeped affirmatively as the tinny female voice flatly announced the power surge.

_Power at fifty percent. _Gordon then tossed both spent batteries into a nearby trash basket and snuck the little cord back into place before sliding out the door to rejoin his comrade. He gave Fisher an innocent smile.

"Sorry, did you say something?" Fisher was good, his facial expression didn't falter as he casually responded.

"Yeah, get rid of that crowbar. Now come on, let's go." With that he wheeled around and set off down the hall at a much faster pace than before. Struggling to keep up with the marine, Gordon shook his head. It was worth it.

_OK for all of those of you who don't know, this takes place roughly one third or so of the way through 'We've Got Hostiles!' And don't worry, the next chapter is going to have them actually get back in the game with a big in-game fight and ending with the freight elevator ride to the surface. _

_Reviews are always welcome BTW._


	4. We've got hostiles!

_I should start putting copyrights into my chapters now so here it goes._

_Half-Life and its affiliated characters and affiliated everything else all belong to Valve Corporation who can have Fisher too if they want. _

**Unlikeliest of Friends**

"**We've got hostiles!"**

Well, it was bound to happen again _sooner _or later. When one was trapped inside an underground science facility being overrun by hostile aliens while at the same time military cleanup crews tried to kill everyone involved in the project, you were bound to get into a really big fight sooner or later.

And seeing as how fate had allowed the last fifteen minutes of going down and back-tracking through various hallways generally unmolested, it was only fair that Gordon and Fisher were about to enter a world of really painful bullets.

Gordon had always made himself use a treadmill at _least _five times a week for awhile so he wasn't so unprepared for trying to move up against the flow of a conveyor belt. Well, he hadn't been _crouching _on the treadmill, but it still wasn't so bad.

However once he had emerged from the tunnels and found himself in a small room split down the middle by canyon of some sort, he suddenly found himself wishing he had just stayed on. Or ever better, just stayed home in general.

But as it all played out, Gordon Freeman suddenly found himself tumbling off the black moving surface and landing hard on the concrete surface. He really needed to work on his landings. But as he pushed himself off the dirty floor, pushing his glasses up, he suddenly realized that clumsiness was not the greatest worry present.

Looking up, the bespectacled MIT graduate found himself looking at a very tough, very mean looking marine cradling a submachine gun in his burly arms. Gulping, Gordon lay still and desperately hoped he maybe hadn't been seen.

But to well-trained marines it appeared that stupid misplaced physicists falling off of conveyor belts were easy to spot. For Gordon found the gasmask covered face looking straight at him.

"Uh-oh." The soldier reacted quickly enough, raising his gun and preparing to open fire. Gordon scrambled up and jumped behind a metal storage contained muttering, "Uh-oh!"

"_Squad, we've got Freeman!" _He heard the muffled voice shouting to some comrades.

"Double uh-oh!" He said again as he raised his rifle. Something in the back of his head told him that it wasn't good to be so calm in this situation but he ignored it as he pulled himself around the opposite side of the storage container, rifle up.

The marine was behind a sandbag, gun still pointed at the side Gordon had hid behind. Apparently he thought all scientists were tactically stupid. Gordon felt a little insulted, he hadn't earned a PhD in Theoretical Physics by being stupid thank you very much!

Admitted his PhD didn't require tactical combat thinking, but still. Gordon took a deep breath, steadied himself and leaped around the corner, aiming down the menacing rifle. The marine saw him immediately, and with what must have been an annoyed look, brought his own gun around to fire.

Except Gordon did first.

The gun roared in his hands and sprayed tongues of fire as it said a hail of lead thudding into the soldier. The man's own gun dropped as he collapsed to the ground, white puffs indicating where his bullet-proof vest had taken bullets, and red splashes were his unprotected self was hit. He died without a sound.

Swallowing hard, Gordon shakily stood up with his rifle still held out before him. He licked his lips, where was Fisher? He had been right behind him when he-

"Freeman, what the heck just happened?" Gordon snapped around to see the big marine sliding professionally off of the conveyor belt, landing on his feet like a cat. He gave Gordon a questioning look, then his smoking gun barrel, and then his eyes traveled to the dead soldier across the gap. Eyebrows shot up and eyeballs widened. Then he looked back at Gordon and gave him an affirming nod. "Nice work Freeman."

Gordon shot him a slightly annoyed look. It wasn't like he was completely incompetent at this; he _had _being doing well enough before Fisher came along thank you very much. It seemed like Fisher just couldn't get over the fact that a scientist could do such acts of violence. Come to think of it, Gordon had a hard time with that very fact himself.

"Thanks." He quietly responded to Fisher who took no note of this before carrying on, leaping the gap in one jump. Gordon considered doing likewise, thought better of it and instead just crossed a small metal bridge. Trying not to look at the slumped soldier, Gordon briskly snatched away a pair of ammunition clips from him before quickly moving on.

Except he couldn't move on, this room was a dead end. Gordon frowned at this, before noticing a ladder descending into the diving gap at the bisected room's center. He nodded towards it to Fisher who gave him thumbs up before descending down it. Gordon followed, his HEV suit clanging against the metal rungs.

Dropping the last two feet, he raised his gun and took a step forward before stopping in midstride. Just two feet ahead of him was the ghostly blue light of a laser trip mine. Eyes tracking the thin beam, he followed it to the source, a camera-like projector stuck to the grey wall.

Looking up, he then saw a turrey tucked cozily into a corner just in front of him. Gordon's heart leaped as he saw the lethal muzzle aiming right for his face, but it didn't fire. So it was laser-activated, and there wasn't one in front of him meaning that-

"Fisher don't move." He blurted out as he realized where the laser trip was. Glancing back, he saw Fisher fixed on the hair thin red laser just an inch behind his left leg. His face grew white, his eyes widened and his mouth dropped as he realized how close to death he was.

Very carefully, he slowly stretched his leg forward, followed quicker by the other one. A foot from the laser now, Fisher looked at Gordon, his face awash in adrenaline and thanks as he thanked him.

"Thanks, that was close." Gordon simply nodded before pointing to the trip mine. Fisher saw it and nodded. Gordon nodded back, took a deep breath, and with a huge step, he crossed it. With a sigh of relief, he beckoned to his friend who copied him without trouble. That hurdle passed, they made their way down the hall to whatever challenge faced them next.

They rounded the corner leading into a large storage room, packed with crates just as a pair of relieved scientists rushed out, pleading to an unseen person.

"Take me with you!"

"I'm on the science team, help us!" Gordon realized who they were talking to too late, and before a word of warning could breach his lips, machine guns rattled and the two dropped dead into rapidly forming pools of blood.

Shock stood Gordon still for a moment, but only a moment. It was quickly being replaced by a brew of adrenaline and fear, the ideal mixture for a combat situation. Gordon found himself charging out with Fisher, gun raised high.

A pair of soldier were on the catwalk above; Gordon took aim and fired, sending the one on the left into a slumped pile, part of his head gone. Gordon didn't stop to think as he methodically turned on the other who had seen him and fired back.

Sharp smacks of pain on his side, like really fast paintballs, gave Gordon reason for a pained grunt. But he just ducked and dodged behind cover in the form of a large crate before rolling out like a movie commando and firing again, a spray of bullets sparking on the metal walkway.

_Warning. Impact detected, morphine administered. _Out of the corner of his eye, Gordon saw the numbers indicating his suits power level drop as the electrically hardened suit absorbed the high-velocity rounds. He ignored it, adjusted his aim and fired again.

The marine slumped over the guard rails, a hole in place of his eye. He heard Fisher exclaim, "Holy crap" before Gordon was running forward again, hunched down to make himself a smaller target. At the end of the room another soldier popped out of cover, his gun crackling as he sent bullets speeding towards Gordon who had dived into cover at first sight of the soldier.

Dashing back out, he brought his gun to aim when another rifle, much closer and louder, boomed by his ear and sent the distant man down in a red spray. Fisher leaped beside him, not stopping to check his work as he quickly scanned the area. His eyes hit the end of the room again as two more marines dived off the descending stairs and behind some sandbags, squirting off bursts of fire as they went. Fisher opened up immediately while screaming seemingly to no one.

"We've got hostiles!" This brought an immediate _Well no duh_ to Gordon's mind as he joined the marine, holding the trigger down until it was empty. This hail of lead forced the soldiers heads down for a moment, enough time for Gordon to sprint to the next group of crates.

As the soldiers and Fisher began to trade fire again, Gordon quickly ran towards them, protected by the stacks of wooden crates all around him. A scream ahead signified Fisher's accuracy, doubly proven as the scream abruptly stopped.

Taking a deep breath, Gordon hit the switch to drop the empty clip in his gun and snatched a new one from his magnetic belt and slid it into place with a metallic click. Remembering Fisher's instruction, he pulled back the charging lever and chambered the first bullet. Thus ready to take on the enemy, Gordon sprinted out from cover to face the enemy.

Only the soldier wasn't there. He was waiting for Gordon, and suddenly the physicist had the rifle brutally knocked out of his arms as the marine jumped out from behind the crate, a vicious smile lighting up his eyes. He must have been out of bullets, for he had his very large knife out instead of his gun. Yay.

Gordon stumbled back as the marine swung, the metal tip pinging as it glanced off his HEV suit chest plate, nicking the Lambda symbol. Grappling for his crowbar, Gordon managed to bring the tool up just in time as a second slash glanced off it. Swinging it in a wide arc, Gordon tried to aim for the soldiers head.

With a trained ease, the marine grabbed the crowbar in mid air before applying a vicious kick in the gut to Gordon, sending the stunned physicist back into a crate, the crowbar held limply in his hands.

_Warning. Impact detected. _His suit power dropped some more as the marine came at him like a cat, knife held out in front of him. Gordon found himself trying to scramble back against the crate uselessly as the marine suddenly bolted forward at his unprotected neck.

Gordon jerked his head to the left, sending the blade plunging past him into the wood. With a desperate swing, Gordon felt his crowbar connect solidly with the man's leg with a resounding crack.

The soldier screamed in agony and nearly collapsed, but managed to stay on his feet while he jerked the knife out and retreated, limping badly. Scrambling to his feet Gordon held up his crowbar to attack.

"You stupid scientist piece of shit! Come here!" The man hissed murderously between clenched teeth as he swung madly at Gordon again, pain and hatred overcoming his training. Gordon swung his crowbar and knocked the knife out of the way, then jabbed forward with the pointed end. There was an agonized scream as the crowbar shoved into the marines gut.

Gordon jerked and the tool came out with more difficulty than he had thought. Quickly bringing it around, he saw the marine lunging at him in one last desperate attack. Sidestepping the clumsy jab, Gordon brought up his crowbar and slammed it down with all his adrenaline-fueled might.

There was a resounding crack as something broke, prompting another bone-cracking strike. The marine fell like a sack of potatoes, dead. As blood began to pool out of his head, Gordon just stood there, crowbar held in both hands before him, breathing heavily. And for awhile that was the only sounds he could hear. He just stood there, watching in a state of numb horror at the person he had just killed.

"Ho-lee crap Freeman, that's some serious shit you did there!" Fisher's voice broke the silence, he sounded almost _impressed. _Gordon waited for the feeling of revulsion to come, to remind him that he _was _still human, but to his horror it never did.

He couldn't even feel horror for killing someone now.

Fisher, ever oblivious to this, finally noticed his comrades deadpan staring. His shoulders dropped, his eyes dimmed and he let out a low sigh. He slowly walked over to Gordon, skirting the dead body, until he was beside the stunned scientist. "It never gets easy does it?" Gordon stayed silent for a moment, then turned to Fisher, his face a pained mixture of horror, shock and pleading.

"How? How do you ever get used to it?" He asked, his voice sounding broken and empty. Fisher sighed again and closed his eyes.

"You don't. You never get used to killing someone, no matter how many times you do it. You just don't think about it, look at their masks, their suits. Never their faces or their eyes. If you keep doing that, you just eventually stop feeling. You just do it and do it, and when it's all over you scream into your pillow and try not to kill yourself. Never let yourself think about them, not their faces or their families or anything. They're just masks, shoot them and they fall down. Don't think about their screams or pleas for mercy." His face went white like he had seen a ghost. "Never their pleas for mercy." He repeated blankly as for a moment, his eyes widened, like he was relieving some horrible experience.

Gordon stayed silent for a moment, they both did. Then, looking like a lost and hurt child, Gordon fixed his bespectacled gaze on Fisher once again and spoke, his voice sounding bent by the tone that signified he knew the ugly truth, despite what he wanted.

"I don't want to do it." Then he looked back down at the body for a moment and Fisher thought he was going to break. But after a brief internal struggle, he stood up on wobbly legs, picked up his gun, and reloaded it before heading up the stairs without a word.

_So I plan for the next chapter to be continuing through the level "We've got Hostiles' and hopefully ending with the elevator to the surface followed by the descent back down into Black Mesa. I know I was going to have that in this chapter, but I felt this was a good place to end this chapter. So until next time, remember that I really love reviews. _


	5. Playing Ball

**Unlikeliest of Friends**

**Playing ball**

_Okay I lied, sue me. I just couldn't get myself to finish we've got hostiles so I'm just skipping ahead to Blast pit. Hope you like this one!_

_Valve owns all the characters and concepts, etc. Except Fisher. And thanks for the two reviews people, they keep me going! Remember, the more reviews the merrier!_

"Where on Earth do these things keep coming from?" Fisher demanded in exasperation. Gordon wasn't totally listening very well, but if he had been he would have most likely made a comment that they weren't coming from earth at all.

But he was not listening, and the reason he was not listening was because at that very moment he was trying very hard to stay as glued to the metal wall as possible while trying not to scream in horror and bolt out the door like that security guard who's pitiful remnants lay smeared about the doorway just around the corner.

Breathing heavily, the misplaced physicist's eyes shot wildly around the hall they were in, looking for a, well, he wasn't sure what he was looking for but it would probably better than that horror banging around outside.

Gordon saw the other guard, slumped against the bloody wall with a hollow, vacant look in his eyes. He was still staring at the platform outside where his buddy had just ran out, shooting wildly at this latest freak of nature. Next to him was a stack of boxes marked EXPLOSIVES and sealed tight. And right beside them was another, smaller box filled with grenades.

He really had no idea what to do, not really. While Fisher cursed and ranted on about the freakish tentacle thing outside, it was still banging insensitively, seemingly right at the wall behind where Fisher and Gordon were.

"_Fire the rocket; destroy the damn thing before it grows any larger!" _The dying words of the viciously wounded scientist in the corridor behind them rang in Gordon's mind. He had already tried that, the fuel and oxygen flow was dead although the power was still on. And from his limited knowledge about the rocket test chamber, the fuel and oxygen controls were beneath them two or three levels down. No problem ordinarily, but right now…

Another particularly loud slam from the thing outside drew a particularly loud curse in reply from Fisher. Finally Gordon whirled around on him in a brief and rare moment of anger.

"Shut up! Didn't you hear that guard, this thing hears us! I'd bet my PhD that it can't see much but it does have super sensitive sound receptors, so shut up!" Fisher stood there for a moment, stunned at the meek scientist's sudden outburst. Then he recovered and gave him an exasperated look,

"Well then what do you suggest Doctor?" He made sure to put extra sarcasm on the title doctor. Gordon shut hi eyes for a moment and thought. They had a shell-shocked security guard, a few hundred pounds of TNT, a box of grenades, and an alien monster with super sensitive hearing.

Wait a minute… Gordon turned back to Fisher, desperation clear in his voice as he outlined his hastily formed plan of action.

"Ok, um this thing has really good hearing right?" Fisher nodded, "Ok, now we have to get to the second or third level to turn on the oxygen and fuel supply for the rocket, if we can do that then we can fry that thing." Fisher nodded again, following along. Gordon gave a half-hearted reassuring grin and went on.

"Now the only difficulty is getting from here to down there without getting killed. And since it hears us so well, we can't just walk down there, not like this. So one of us has to make a lot of noise while the other sneaks down and turns on the fuels, got it?" Fisher waved impatiently at him,

"Yeah, yeah I get it, but what we gonna use for the noise maker?" Gordon smiled at his idea as he pointed to the crate of grenades.

"Those." He said triumphantly. "One of us stays up here and chucks grenades to distract that thing while the other makes a run for it. Fisher nodded, this time in approval.

"Good idea Freeman, now who's gonna stay up here and play ball?" Gordon immediately pointed at the big marine.

"You are sir, who knows what's down there and you're the best-trained person here. Just go through the doors you find on the second and/or third level down and look around for the fuel supply. Fisher gave him a blank look which slowly morphed into one of denial.

"No, no way I'm going down there. You're the egghea-scientist here who's worked here before, plus you're the lightest. You go." But Gordon was adamant in his choice.

"In this metal? I'd be far from light or stealthy and I have never been down here before." He lied, "I don't know where the fuels are anymore than you do, just that they're down there." As to prove his point, Gordon walked over and picked up two of the grenades, tossing one in each hand. Fisher scowled at his friends logic, then picked up his rifle before reconsidering and sliding out his desert eagle .50 from its leather side holster. Flicking on the laser sight so a brilliant ruby red point of light painted the wall before him, he slid off his heavy back pack and helmet too, getting ready to run for it.

Gordon sighed; this would be nice for a change. He wasn't running about risking his skin, just kicking grenades off the edge. Fisher got ready to run, giving a warning glance to his friend. Now they waited for the monster in the pit to stop tapping around, which it ceased with an almost sorry moan. As silence descended on them, Gordon pulled the pin on one grenade, holding the lever in, and ran around the corner to face outside before throwing the bomb with all his might.

It flew through the air and clanked at the bottom of the blast pit, just feet from one of the things tentacles. It heard the sound and began to swivel to investigate. Fisher just began to run all out down the platform for a ladder when the grenade exploded, showering the nearest tentacle with shrapnel.

The thing must have been built like a tank, and looked about as smart as one too as it immediately began hammering down on the metal surface in a fury. Gordon watched from safety and smiled, he could get used to this. Looking for Fisher, he saw the big man jump down from the ladder and beginning to run for the boarded-up door. The things tentacles began to turn and face him; Gordon took note of this and lobbed his second grenade. This one fell short and landed on the third level platform, waited and detonated. All the creatures immediate energy was expended slamming the platform full of dents and holes with its beak-like tentacles.

Seeing Fisher pause for a moment by the door only to kick the board down and dart inside, Gordon relaxed a bit, grabbed another pair of grenades and waited for his services to be needed once again.

Of course it was boarded up, though Fisher could see no conceivable reason why the eggheads here would think _plywood _two-by-fours would stop that Monday hell thing outside. It was almost like back in elementary school being taught, in case of a thermonuclear attack by the Russians, to hide under his desk. Thank god for those radiation proof desks.

A swift kick to the hastily-done obstruction made short work of it, and a loud noise. The big Marine managed to high-tail it inside just as an armoured beak-tentacle from hell slammed down behind him with a bang like a gunshot, leaving a puncture in the stainless steel platform.

Safely inside, at least he hoped he was safe, Fisher took a quick breather to catch this breathe before moving on. Skirting over a see-through grid looking down on a hundred foot drop that bottomed out with a nice sloshing river of that radioactive green crap.

Man, Fisher hated this place.

He stopped by a locked door long enough to wrench the opening lever to the side, popping the heavy metal slab of a door open. He wandered out and it slammed shut behind him. Fisher turned on it with a scowl, now how the hell did it know when to do that? How did it know not to shut a second too soon and turn him into a squash? He gave up soon enough, and walked away with a mutter,

"Whatever, stupid scientists and their stupid gizmos." He didn't walk far however, he soon realized this was another one of those bridges crossing that pile of radioactive crap two hundred feet below, all of them were strangely without rails. Again Fisher pondered the mortality rate of Black Mesa.

Gingerly skirting what looked like a fuel cell or something; he made it to the other end, entered a corridor and turned a corner. Following the two large red and blue pipes snaking along the concrete wall, Fisher jogged down the hall, desert eagle extended, and turned another corner to find himself in a room-ish place.

He saw that the twin pipes both lead behind a large locked metal door which was probably not about to budge. So he looked for some other way to get there. His eyes were caught by the sight of a ladder going down a hole in the floor to an open second level. Well, there was nowhere else to go. He shrugged and prepared to head on down. However before he could do so, a familiar gurgling sound stopped him.

Desert eagle out, he whipped around in a crouch, checking professionally for the audibly present enemy. Nothing behind him or to his sides. The gurgle sounded again, leading him to check down the ladder.

Aha, two of the zombie-creatures were loitering around the bottom of the ladder, like gristly greeters. Fisher took a closer look at them, flashing a toothy white grin.

"Well, don'tch you think you're quite the smart bugger now huh? Waitin' down there for me like that. I give you an A for effort amigo's, but that's 'bout it. Ta-ta" and with that, he leveled the big pistol, one-handed, and stuck the ruby-red pinpoint of bright light on the nearest uglies head. Squeezing the trigger, he enjoyed watching a portion of the things head come blowing off and all over the wall, followed by an encore performance by its companion.

With that complete, he shimmied on down the ladder, quick as a snake, and hit the ground. A quick survey of the small level revealed naught a door, but a barred over ladder leading down a nice, long tunnel. Fisher wondered how the hell the janitor was supposed to get through the bars, but he didn't waste a second though on how he would.

A single blast from his desert eagle and a powerful kick from his booted leg was all that it took to send the rusted metal falling away in pieces. Holstering the pistol, he began to half slide and half fall down the ladder into the well-lit tunnel.

He landed on a rusty metal pipe a bit wider than him. A rank stench hit his nostrils at the same time, helpfully reminding him that he was indeed in a sewer.

Well that was just dandy.


	6. What am I doing?

**Unlikely Allies**

**What am I doing?**

_Updated again, and I would like to give many thanks to The Wallflower for absolutely superb beta reading._

_Valve owns Half-Life and all of its affiliates. _

Fisher really didn't know what he was doing, he had to admit it. Why didn't he just make Gordon come down with him? Well he probably had no clue either, but hey, misery loves company.

Balancing on the pipes, Fisher made his way down the pipe until it forked off. Left was his favorite direction anyway, and he made his way down only nearly slipping off the pipe once.

Turning another corner, he looked ahead down the dank and dripping tunnel to see a ladder hanging down in front of him-a sign he was on the right path. Taking care not to slip off the pipe, he got the ladder and began to pull himself up, the Desert Eagle in his mouth for quick access in case there was something up there.

Now he was met by more metal grating blocking the manhole. _What the hell is this for? Were they scared of alligators in the sewer?_

Growling in frustration, the big marine plucked the gun from his tired jaws and fired twice without thinking. He made a mental note to never fire a desert eagle one handed hanging off a ladder in a small tube ever again. He almost dropped the gun at the near-deafening sound

It worked though, a few good smashes with the butt of the gun were sufficient to break through. Shoving the wrecked stuff out of the way, he was about to pull himself up and out when he froze solid at a familiar growling.

He stuck his head out. Yep; the stupid bastard was wandering around aimlessly above him. With a sigh, Fisher pulled his upper body out of the grate and leveled the gun at the stupid thing.

"Have you just been waiting here for me? You have no ambition if your life." He shot once. The heavy gun absorbed most of the .50 caliber recoil while the bullet spread both alien and head all over the wall.

Fisher finished climbing out of the manhole. He noticed the slide of his pistol was still locked back, signifying an empty clip. He slid in one more and pulled back the hammer.

There were several rooms on the short hallway before him, and the marine scoured each of them for aliens and supplies, resulting in two extra grenades. Fisher paused and questioned the practicality of grenades sitting around in the basement of a science research facility. He'd have to ask Gordon later.

Fisher came to a halt, outside a big metal door with a keypad next to it. He hesitated, now what? He didn't know any code to this place. Though if he was at a locked door with a code, perhaps he was near something important. On the other hand this could be no more than a snack bar, judging from what he'd seen of Black Mesa so far with its bullet-proof vending machines.

He just pressed the big button marked ENTER.

The door hummed and slid into the wall. Two zombies ambled towards him. With a near dismal sigh of annoyance, Fisher lazily brought up his Desert Eagle and shot twice, a bullet-per zombie. As they collapsed in a bloody heap, Fisher side-stepped around them.

"You know, I used to think this kind of thing would be awesome, fighting zombies I mean. But now it's more like a chore. I really just wanna get out of here now, especially since this whole op's gone to hell in a hand basket. HECU, Hazardous Environment Combat Unit my ass, we're Hazardous Environment _Containment_ Unit. This is all such a-" His voice was abruptly cut off by the site of what lay beyond the door.

It must have been at least four hundred feet deep, and equally high from where Fisher stood. Just two meters from his feet was a massive, yawning metal chasm, a giant tube almost that dropped far down to a giant still fan blade. It ended way up high in what appeared to be a pile of shoddily nailed together wood planks.

Fisher let out a low whistle, it reminded him of the giant wind-chamber in _The Empire Strikes Back._ His footsteps echoed throughout the whole entire gigantic structure as he neared the edge of the small room where the floor abruptly gave way to the long drop, and now he wondered what this thing was for.

Something clicked in Fisher's mind from Grade Four Science. Something about wind energy. And if he was supposed to turn on the power for the rocket…

He was suddenly flinging himself down a ladder to the access platform below. It was a quick descent and he dropped the last meters, landing on his feet with a thud. Across the short walkway was a very simple looking red button. Not thinking about it, Fisher pressed the button a second before he realized he was _under _the giant spinning fan.

Adrenaline can move someone very fast, Fisher was up the ladder fifteen feet and climbing fast in just three seconds, just as the massive blades were beginning to turn, faster and faster. He managed to make it to the top, heart pounding, just as the wind from the machine below really started to pick up speed.

He pulled himself over the edge and scrambled across the concretelike a mouse. He pulled himself up against a wall, breathing heavily.

"Who the _hell_ designed that thing? Bloody Mary?"I barely made it up here without getting my head cut off!" He pulled himself off and brushed off his fatigues, shaking his head in a dismal manner. "I can tell you, I have no sympathy for Black Mesa, lookin' like they deserve all this crap."

A hearty gale was now blowing past Fisher upwards, and the big marine grinned in satisfaction, Freeman would sure be pleased to see that the power light zap to life.

_Geez that was a strong wind, it must be clocking near a hundred miles an hour_. Fisher edged nearer to sick his hand over the end, wow it was like a solid wall or something like tha-

Fisher's thoughts were rudely cut off by the very sudden fact that the wind grabbed him like a rag doll and yanked him off the platform into the abyss, much like Luke Skywalker he later reflected on. Unlike Luke though, he was flying straight up with his scream of terror drowned out in the roaring wind that pummeled him all around.

But then with a slam he slammed into the make-shift barricade of wood planks, thus ending his upward experience with a mighty smack on the chest which sucked away a deal of his PCV's power.. Now he was just being shoved against wood by a force that felt like a thousand elephants stomping on his back. _This, can't, be, happening. _

Fisher was in too much shock to really comprehend what was happening; just that he should get out Survival instincts snapped on in his brain, shoving everything else aside.. He could barely move his arms, but move them he did. Sliding them against the hurricane-force winds, he managed to reach the big k-bar knife at his side.

He began the laborious process of ramming it against the wooden boards. His impact must have weakened the boards. They gave with a crashing sound and the wind flung him up onto the concrete roof above. And it didn't squish him?

He scooted across the roof like a spider to the large, open air-duct. With a mighty tug, he pulled the rest of himself in.

The pressing force of the wind vanished. He immediately as he fell to the metal bottom with a thud where he stayed for a good ten seconds, laying there and panting like a dog while thoughts raced through his head. _How the hell does anything get done here? IF the janitor doesn't get his head whacked off, and then he'll probably get crushed against the ceiling._

Fisher rolled over and sat up to begin his crawl down the roomy ventilation system to wherever it lead. He suddenly found a headcrab flying at his face.

Tired and beaten up or not, he was still a marine and he could still kick a headcrab's ass any day of the week, presuming they had asses of course.

"Ugh, if you bastards had balls I'd kick ya'll right there." He muttered as he threw the crushed thing to the side with one hand while gripping his desert eagle like a club in the other. Hoping that was the last one, he crawled on.

It wasn't the last one, three crabs and several panes of grating later he killed the last one. And as he smashed his way through some pieces of plywood that had been placed in the vents for some obscure reasonhe really found himself hoping that, perhaps for the first time in his career, he could retire soon.

Bashing down one last grate, He was on top of an ledge overlooking a small room with an open door. He didn't know what was past it, but it sure beat the hell out of more crawling around.

And to his half-surprise, just as he was about to leap down, he found a ladder ascending the ledge, so the janitor could crawl around to put up plywood barriers of course. If he survived this he would probably go to jail for shooting Administrator Breen, or the architect, or both.

He slid down the ladder, walked into the room, and saw zombies. Several zombies who saw him and began their ambling little dance for him

Something snapped in him. He had been bitten, shot, stabbed, burned, electrocuted, irradiated, and almost crushed because of some dumb scientists.

He screamed in a mix of frustration and rage and charged. He hit the zombie in front of him with a flying kick that smashed its ribs and threw it on its back. As it tried to get up, he stomped hard on its chest, bent down and rammed his pistol forward like a knife, actually ripping through into the headcrab's skin, then emptied three bullets into it.

A shiver shot through him as a long, spindly claw touched his neck. Moving in a blur he whipped around while ducking to deliver an uppercut. To the zombie which staggered backbefore taking a hefty swing at him. Fisher's hand shot up and caught its spider-like arm before smashing it straight down on his knee, breaking the bone in two.

An agonized cry ripped from the thing's mangled throat before he blew its head all over the wall with an echoing bullet from his sidearm. The slide snapped back, empty. He discarded the gun and whipped out his knife just as the third ambling monster took a deadly swing at him.

He caught this arm too and pulled the monster closer. He shoved the k-bar into the zombie with all his considerable might, fueled by adrenaline, fear, rage, and frustration. It went it beyond the handle, his hand slid into the reeking guts of the thing. Without a pause he ripped it up and out of the upper chest cavity with a spurt of blood.

Fisher took a deep breath, and then wiped the knife off on its tattered lab coat. Sliding it back into his sheath, he paused to leisurely retrieve and reload his pistol. He felt better nownot angry or anything, just a little spent.

For the first time he took a look around the room, his attention was caught by a ladder at the far end, and by a panel near him with two big red buttons on it marked OXY and FUEL.

Well, Freeman said to turn on the fuel supply. It was a nice sensation to press those two big buttons and watch the luminous lights glow to life, followed by the sudden thrumming of machinery nearby as the liquid began to flow through the tanks.

Fisher stood and watched it for a moment, a relaxed smile on his face, before heading off for the ladder . He followed the ladder up to a door, back over the bridge to the blast pit, taking a pause to push the big fuel tank over the edge and into the glowing green moat of radioactive sludge below. It detonated with a nice bang.

Feeling relaxed for the first time in a few hours, he headed back to Freeman.

_Next chapter we shall switch back to Gordon's POV, but I think I'll try Fisher again sometime, maybe. That said, read and review please! _


	7. You did what?

**Unlikely Allies**

"**You did what?"**

_This is my longest chapter yet and probably one of my favorites. Again much inadequate thanks to The Wallflower for fantastically amazing beta-reading._

It wasn't Gordon's fault, not exactly. He just had bad luck in general. Such as when he made the propane-fueled tennis ball cannon for the fourth grade science fair. It wasn't his fault that Robert Jenkins in the fifth grade had increased the propane flow on a dare so when Gordon demonstrated it the tennis ball knocked the vice principal out for two days straight.

Or back in grad school when he his roommate Donnie McCormen suggested he hold onto some papers for him and it turned out to be the answer key he'd stolen from Professor Long's desk. Thank god they'd caught Donnie in Mr. Longs office a week later, just before Gordon could be expelled.

Or even more recently when Dr. Magnusson had asked him to heat up his microwave casserole for him. Gordon had put it in, turned the microwave on, and promptly pulled out a book to read while it warmed up for the required two minutes. Five minutes later when Gordon smelled smoke, he opened the microwave and took one look at the casserole before throwing it in the garbage and pretending it never happened.

"Gordon, get ready!" Gordon perked up at his name and looked outside. Fisher was on the second level waving frantically before dodging back inside to avoid the frenzied tentacles. So picking up a grenade from the small stack at his feet. Gordon pulled the pin and hurled it into the chamber.

Immediately all the creatures fury was focused on where the grenade exploded, swiftly reducing part of the floor to Swiss cheese. Fisher took his chance and bolted across the floor to the ladder leading up. The creature took notice of this and swung around to attack him. So Gordon armed another grenade and chucked it into the chamber.

The creature's attention was diverted once more, allowing Fisher to climb the ladder and sprint over to the door. Leaning against the wall for a moment while the monster slammed against the door, the trooper got his breath back and stood up, casting a near shadow over the comparatively small scientist and asked, "So?"

"So, what?"

Fisher let out an exasperated breath. "So aren't you going to ask me how the mission went?"

Gordon replied quietly, "Ok, so how did the mission go?"

"Awful. I was bitten, smashed into a ceiling by a giant spinning fan, attacked by zombies, cut, nearly zapped, and I'm out of bullets." He let out a wide grin. "I got the power on, plus the fuel supplies. Now let's go fry this thing!"

Gordon couldn't argue with that. He was about to follow Fisher back to the control center when the soldier stopped dead in his tracks. He rotated around on one foot and set his eyes on him.

"Freeman, where'd my rifle go?"

Gordon's heart sank. He forced out the breath in his lungs in an exaggerated hissing sound. So when Gordon decided to stay silent. "Gordon. Where, is, my, rifle?"Gordon started to scratch his head, a nervous habit of his which was quite difficult in his bulky HEV suit. Opening his eyes slowly, he shrank under Fisher's increasingly intense gaze before stabbing his arm to his side, his finger rigidly sticking out to point out the door where the thing was.

"Out there."

"What do you mean, out there?" Gordon clenched his eyes together again.

"Well, since I don't have the best, well, throwing hand I uh, kinda thought that if I used a, you know, club of some sort I could get the grenades further into the chamber."

"Get on with it!" Fisher roared.

"So I took your rifle to use a club but when I swung to hit the grenade I accidently let go of the handle and threw the gun and it landed at the bottom of the blast pit and I really didn't want to go get it because I would probably die so I decided to wait for you to get back. Sorry."

Fisher stood there for a moment, jaw-half open, stunned.

"You did what?"

Throwing up his hands in exasperation, Gordon pulled Fisher's arm toward the entrance to the blast pit, he jabbed his finger to the far side of the pit. And there lay the black, sleek shape of Fishers rifle.

After a long sigh, Fisher turned around and shrugged his shoulders before trudging off to the control room, mumbling something incomprehensible.

Fisher was already at the panel, when Gordon arrived and realized the only protection between them and the incoming ten thousand degree heat was a shattered glass window. He was about to raise a warning to Fisher when the marine, apparently a bit eager to do this, raised his fist down on the red FIRE button with a great deal of enthusiasm while calling out in victory, "Hasta la vista baby!" And before Gordon could do a thing about it, he slammed down on the button with all his considerable strength.

Gordon's heart shot into his throat as he lunged for Fisher and tackled him to the ground, he just had enough time to yell, "You idiot you'll kill us all!" before the mounted engines in the pit finished their short preparations and fired.

The roar of the rockets shook the very earth, and the thunderous sound they produced removed all surrounding sound. Gordon just managed to shut his eyes tight and throw a hand over Fishers face before brilliant, burning light spilled into the room.

The temperature went from room to one hundred and twenty degrees in a scarce second. The metal floor against his forehead quickly rose in temperature until he had to pull away from it. The air coming was hot and thick; it almost burned his lungs just to breath. And still the rockets fired, on and on as they incinerated the creature to absolutely nothing as it shrieked in agony.

Slowly, the roar died away. The heat dissipated and was replaced by the sound of alarms and Gordon's own labored breathing. On wobbly legs he rose. His face and hair were soaked with sweat and the metal parts of his armor still radiated heat. Miraculously though it had cost him no power at all, his suit was still at sixty seven percent. The frame of his glasses was cooling off, and they almost burned his skin. He was thankful the lenses hadn't melted.

He pulled himself up and leaned against the wrecked control panel. Fisher was slick with sweat, his fatigues clung to his body and his face was beet-red. He was panting for breath and steadying himself against the wall, ignorant to the cooling metal. Gordon gave him a moment to recover, then. "Fisher you idiot, you could have killed us!"

"Hey don't give me any lip, isn't there supposed to be a blast shield or something? Why didn't that work?"

"Oh I don't know, maybe it had something to do with the giant alien smashing through?" Fisher didn't have a reply to that, he backed off before changing the subject.

"Well, now what?" Fisher asked, clearly at a loss of answers. Gordon couldn't blame him either, now what? Going back wasn't the best option, and there was no other way out. "Gordon, what are we gonna do?" Fished asked again.

The question struck Gordon like a stack of bricks. What where they going to do now? Since leaving the Anomalous Materials lab he'd just been focused on survival. He had just been trying to get out of the facility, get to the surface, and get help for everyone trapped down below. He'd been hoping he could get out safe and let the military come in and deal with everything. Of course now the military, with the exception of Fisher, hadn't been the best source of help.

What would they do know? Presuming they survived this madhouse and managed to get away, they would only have solved some of their problems. They would be fugitives, hunted by the government to the best of its abilities. Gordon could imagine it already, news stories about a renegade marine and an insane scientist.

So what was there left to even live for? Gordon wasn't a suicidal type, but reality was now slapping him in the face. Doctor Kleiner and Eli were still down where it all started, probably dying if not dead already. Barney was also probably dead; Gordon could imagine it in frightfully graphic detail. Barney, lying deal in a pool of blood on the floor, eye open in an expression of horror. Eli with a headcrab tearing into his face, muffling scream of-

Gordon was acutely aware of being lifted into the air by two strong arms. "Gordon, wake up! Snap out of it, we need to get outta here. I think I saw a ladder in the blast pit where that thing was, now come on!" Gordon looked up at him, surprised. He'd never heard this tone of voice from Fisher yet, a voice of strong authority and determination.

Fisher set him down gently, then slid out through smashed the window that overlooked the blast pit. Gordon hesitated for a moment, was there really any point in going? But an old quote he'd heard before, the author's name failed him, echoed in head. _Where there's life there's hope. _So Gordon started after Fisher, maybe this hopeless situation would turn around for the better somehow.

Crawling out the empty window frame, he slid onto the metal walkway and clambered down the ladders. Gordon was hit by a thick choking wave of stench, it filled his nose and mouth like water. Without delay he bent over and threw up, tried to stand up, then threw up again.

Wiping off his mouth, he stood up to see that Fisher was struggling not to do the same despite the gas mask he'd pinched off a dead soldier a while back. In the end though he failed, and he just managed to pull the mask away from his face before he too curled over and blew chunks.

While Fisher recovered, Gordon tried to find a way to filter out the stench of vaporized alien. Breathing through his mouth was barely any better than through his nose, he could literally taste it. _What a day to forget my helmet. _He though bitterly.

Fisher had recovered; standing back up on two shaky feet he didn't say a word but just pointed at the rim of the blast pit where the creature had been with one hand, while using his other to hold the mask in front of his face.

A red ladder dropped fifteen feet from the rim of the pit down into the tunnel the creature had carved up, although how it had survived the heat was beyond Gordon.

_Does he want us to go down there?_ Apparently Fisher did, he was already heading for the ladder. Gordon hesitated, on one hand, did he really want to travel down the tunnel of an alien creature which had just been vaporized by test-rockets. But on the other hand, did he have any other choice? So with a shrug, he followed Fisher into the pit.

The heat radiating up from the hole fogged his glasses immediately, and he had to follow Fisher's hazy shape down the tunnel of slag and glass. When Fisher disappeared, Gordon didn't stop in time, and fell ten feet.

This would have been no problem normally, but as it was when he hit the un-even surface and slipped, he rolled right into an unsuspecting Fisher who gave way with a startled "What the-" before hitting the ground and sliding down the slanted surface with Gordon right behind.

Gordon couldn't see anything, so he just grabbed his glasses and held them tight against his face as they slid down faster and faster. Another drop landed him on his back with a hard bump. To make it all worse, Gordon couldn't see anything, being in a pitch black tunnel. All he could do was hang in tight and go with the ride.

The ground gave away under Gordon, just as he heard a yell from Fisher. He snapped open his eyes in time to see the water's surface rushing up. Again he managed to grab hold of his glasses before he plunged in.

What shocked him about the water wasn't its cold, he'd been expecting cold. No, this water was _hot. _Almost hotter than a hot tub, which was reasonable seeing as they'd just fired a rocket engine into it. Letting go of his glasses Gordon's instincts kicked into gear, and swam hard for the surface far above. He could see the blurred shape of a man below to him, also swimming hardup.

His lungs were starting to burn when he broke through the surface, sucking in a huge breath of air. But no sooner had he taken a breath then his Geiger counter jumped into action, clicking away like machine gun. Gordon took a moment to rub some of the water out of his eyes before taking a look around the dark room he was in.

He took in a deep breath instinctively and felt a chill race up his spine. Right in front of him was a dead security guard, sprawled out grotesquely. Next to him were several metal barrels knocked over with toxic waste oozing out.

Fisher broke water next to him. He took one look at the scene around him before casting an urgent glance at Gordon. Gordon nodded and taking a breath, they both dived back down again.

Fisher had grabbed Gordon's arm and was leading him down, down, down. Gordon felt the pressure in his ears grow as they sank deeper and deeper, going through a small hole in the bottom. Was Fisher insane? They should be going up, not down.

As to answer him, Fisher suddenly let go of him and kicked off the floor, shooting up through the water like an arrow. Gordon was running low on air now; he could feel the burn in his lungs. Kicking off the concrete bottom, he too shot up through the water towards a distant surface. Shoving himself up with his arms, difficult to do when covered in a heavy HEV suit, Gordon strained to get to the surface. He could feel the need to breathe growing rapidly inside him, the pressure in his lungs getting worse and worse, he began to feel the rising panic.

Air! He exploded out of the water like a breaching whale. He groped for a surface. Not finding one he began to sink under once again. Before he could though, a strong arm grabbed him and pulled him up out of the water and toward a ledge which Gordon reached out gratefully and grabbed to support himself.

For awhile Gordon just stayed there, breathing heavily. Beside him Fisher was doing the same, obviously recovering from the adrenaline-juiced experience. Gordon took a moment to be grateful his suit was water-proof; it would not have been fun to take the thing off and empty it.

Gordon pulled himself up and out of the water and onto the ledge, Fisher quickly followed suit. The marine pulled his big pistol out and tried to empty as much water from it as he could while Gordon turned to check out what was around them. But before he could take two steps Fisher's angry voice boomed out behind him.

"Freeman, what the hell was that? You nearly killed us back there." Gordon cringed, this might not be pretty. He turned gingerly to face the really annoyed looking Fisher.

"Um, well my glasses fogged up you see and when you jumped down that first drop I kinda fell and slipped and, well, that was that."

"Oh, and you didn't stop to wonder when I just dropped out of sight?" He asked sarcastically. Gordon fell silent, what could he say about that? He threw up his arms in an "I don't know" gesture.

"I don't know, I just don't think about these things sometimes, sorry."

"How did you ever become a scientist? You keep this crap up and you'll kill us both next time. Now let's go." Without another word he turned and headed for the other side of the ledge they were on, and Gordon followed. Fisher soon came to an abrupt stop. Gordon peeked around him to see, and his mouth dropped open.

It was a river of radiation. A massive chamber rolled before them, and it was flowing with thick, viscous luminous green sludge which Gordon's ticking Geiger counter told him it was radioactive. It poured out of a massive pipe on the left side of the chamber and filled the bottom before flowing around the corner.

Gordon's mouth went dry, was this a recent development? Or had Black Mesa always been spewing thousands of tons of radioactive waste into god-knew where? He hoped it was the former, the prospect of this much radiation entering the world did not give him a good feeling.

Apparently Fisher wasn't too thrilled about it either, for after a moment of open-mouthed silence he stuttered, "I-is-i-is that radioactive?" Gordon said nothing and just nodded grimly.

Walking out onto a small platform, he looked down the hole in the floor with a ladder descending to another platform that was just above the oozing green muck. Nothing there except for a recharge and a first aid station.

With a slight smile, Gordon climbed down the ladder, dropping the last few feet and landing with a thump. Walking over to the stations, he slid open the cover for his HEV suits recharge port. Unwinding the plug from the station, he plugged himself in and felt the power begin to flow into the suit with a satisfying hum. He closed his eyes and sighed in relaxation as his nearly dead suit thrum to life, administering morphine to his various cuts, rips, and bruises. Well it technically wasn't morphine; it was a far-better alternative that accelerated the natural healing process greatly as well as dulling pain.

Gordon disconnected himself once the well ran dry, saw his suit was at a satisfactory eighty five percent, and moved on to the aid station and flipped the lid. He reached inside and grabbed a pair of small kits both full of medical supplies. Clipping them to his magnetic waist, he climbed back up to the ladder to the waiting Fisher who was tapping his foot impatiently.

"What where you doing?" he asked.

"Filling up on power, and grabbing some med kits. Here, take this." He plucked one kit off his waist and tossed it to Fisher who caught and opened it. Shuffling around its contents, he pulled out a big syringe full of a blue liquid and looked at Gordon inquisitively.

"And these are…" Gordon perked up; he liked explaining stuff like this.

"One of Black Mesa's inventions that will probably rewrite the world of medicine when it's released to the public. It is an assistant drug to the human body's natural healing process. It blocks pain and can fix small muscle and ligament tears in about twenty minutes, and superficial wounds even quicker. In large enough doses it can even repair broken bones in a few hours. Right now it's being used by Black Mesa privately." Fisher put his hands forward at this point.

"Okay, okay, I get it. Fixes you up faster, like my PCV right?" Gordon nodded,

"Similar, but it works much faster." Fisher took this in and nodded.

"Faster, right." With this he jabbed the needle into his arm causing Gordon to wince, he'd always hated needles. Fisher was apparently unfazed and merely watched in complete fascination as a long jagged cut on his arm that had been opened up again slowly scabbed over. Ten seconds later the scab fell off, leaving a bare pink strip of new skin beneath.

Fisher held his newly healed hand in front of his face, silently mouthing amazement at this marvel of science for a moment before returning to the problem at hand. "So how are we planning to cross this crap, that pipe?" Fisher pointed to a large, rusty pipe jutting out across the expanse of waste and going around the corner.

Gordon swallowed, he wasn't very particular about crossing a fifty foot drop over a lake of radioactive waste on a rusted pipe, but it wasn't looking like he had any other choice.

So, Gordon crouched down and holding his arms out for balance, he began to carefully cross the gap with Fisher coming carefully up behind him. The pipe trembled slightly under each foot step but never gave, and eventually Gordon's anxiety and tension died down, but never completely.

After rounding the corner, they saw two things. One, the pipe forked up ahead over a massive chasm. Two, the flowing river of waste gave way to a massive drop and resulting in a turbulent waterfall that poured thousands of tons of toxic sludge over the edge and into the massive, growing pool of it far below.

Trying his best not to look down, Gordon kept heading forward. Behind him he heard Fisher mutter a quiet swear of amazement that Gordon heartily agreed to, this was ridiculous! For God's sake, this was a river, a torrent of radioactive waste that was being dumped out like so much water. It must have been a result of the resonance cascade; surely Black Mesa wouldn't be this criminally incompetent.

Gordon spotted an open hatch to the left fork and headed there. Nearly on his belly, he crawled into it and slid down a ladder, landing inside the pipe with a hollow thud. Fisher landed with a heavier thud.

The thundering of the waterfall outside was now significantly reduced, though it still echoed through the pipe all around him. Checking back Gordon saw heavy grating blocking the way. Checking ahead, he saw unblocked passage.

So he kept going forward, standing up as he found out with some surprise that the pipe was tall enough for him. Not for Fisher though, the big marine had to half-crouch his way down the pipe.

"Freeman, do you know where we're going?"

Fisher sounded a little despairing as he asked, and Gordon did have to agree. He didn't know where he was going. One of the scientists had told him to get to the Lambda lab to help try and stop all of this, but he didn't know where it was, and he didn't think he needed to get there. How could he stop something like this? He sighed deeply before answering Fisher.

"I don't know, but it's probably better than back there." He heard no reply to this, just a deep sigh of disappointment.

Pausing to jump over a break in the pipe floor, Gordon rounded another turn and kept going in silence; the thundering of the waterfall had died to almost nothing. What would he do now? He couldn't head to the surface and just expect a happy ending, not with the US military looking for him.

What about the Lambda complex? Could he really stop this madness somehow? Frankly Gordon doubted it; Lambda had some of the brightest minds in Black Mesa, all of whom outclassed Gordon. If they couldn't fix this then he sure couldn't. But what if he headed there anyway, he might at least find some answers there as to what was happening. Maybe-

A groaning sound echoed through the pipe and sent a spike of fear through Gordon. His recent experiences had taught him that when something groaned, it was usually about to break.

"What was that?" Fisher said.

Gordon began to back up when the entire pipe groaned once more. Then with a shriek of shearing metal the entire shaft broke free and plunged down, taking them with it.

_Not much to say here, just reader and review! Those reviews keep me alive!_


	8. The Visitor

****_Bad author procrastinates like fuck. I had this done in August, but I just never got around to the editing process. For shame on me. Sorry for me such an ass and dropping you guys like warm sputum. _

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**Unlikely Allies**

**An Unforeseen Visitor**

The fall couldn't have been more than thirty feet or so, Fisher hit the floor with a crash, absorbing the fall with his legs and falling flat on his face with a painful jar to the head.

"Ow, damn it." He pushed himself up and rubbed his helmet rim which had rammed against his forehead. Pulling himself to his feet, Fisher tried to ignore the pain in coursing through his body. Soon enough the PCV would get to work. Speaking of which, Fisher checked his PCV stats.

Sixty nine percent, not too bad. Not too good but not too bad. Picking himself up off the floor, Fisher turned to check on Gordon. "Freeman, you okay?" Silence met him, and when Fisher saw the orange-clad figure sprawled out before him, he saw why.

Bright red blood ran freely from a gash above Gordon's eye. Bending down to check for a pulse, Fisher took assurance in the fact that he was unconscious, not dead. Of course in this situation, unconscious wasn't much better than dead.

So, Fisher just had to drag him around this god-forsaken facility, fending off aliens and sadistic troopers while praying his HEV suit woke him up soon. Okay, he could do that. Propping Gordon up against a crate, Fisher stood up to check out where he was.

Their rogue tube had broken through the roof of a small room packed with big crates with a table in the middle. They had landed right on the table crushing it and, judging by the pile of mush, a headcrab.

Confident Gordon was safe; Fisher scooped up his fallen pistol and dashed forward. Peeking around the corner of the room into a winding hall, Fisher checked for danger. Nothing shot at or jumped at him, that was good.

Sprinting down the empty corridor, pistol held in front of him, Fisher scouted out the area ahead. While his empty pistol wouldn't do much against anything, it was better than nothing. Hell, maybe he could bluff a marine out of his weapon, providing he got the jump on him.

From down the corridor he heard what sounded like thunder with a growl to it followed by the chattering bursts of automatic weapons. Slowing down, Fisher approached much more cautiously. The noises grew louder as he neared what appeared to be the end of the hall.

Advancing cautiously, he rounded one more corner and ended up before a large entrance leading out into a spacious room. And there, in that room, Fisher saw what was definitely the second-scariest thing he had ever seen.

Well, first he saw the pair of panicked HECU troopers come charging out of a wide tunnel, pausing only to spin around and fire a pair of contact grenades from their under slung launchers at something behind them, and that something soon came lumbering out into view.

It was huge; an armoured blue creature that Fisher thought looked like what one would get if one crossed an armadillo with a dump truck. It was about the size of a dump truck, standing on two tree-trunk like legs with two equally large arms leveled out in front of it. It's back arched forward and ended with its head that was dominated by a blood red light that Fisher presumed to be an eye.

The soldiers both turned to fire at the thing again, their MP5s chattering uselessly as the 9mm rounds bounced off the plate armor covering the behemoth. When their magazines ran they turned to run. However they had run too late, the monster locked its malicious eye on them and from its arms came two white-hot jets of flame, like a pair of horrific blowtorches.

The HECU troops didn't even have time to scream, the white flames consumed their utterly, burning them so completely not even ash was left behind. Fisher watched all of this, mouth open and with a fairly pissed off look on his face. Seriously? After all they'd went through, after he and Gordon had done to kill that tentacle-thing back in the blast pit, this was what they got? He gritted his teeth in frustration while he scoped out the area.

It looked like a train room or something along those lines. A pair of train tracks slashed across the floor of the room, joined in the center of the room by what looked like a rotating portion of the floor for switching tracks. Scanning the walls, Fisher spotted what could have been a control room while he formed a rough mental plan of what to do.

First step would be to get to the control room and see if he could get a tram. Second step would be to try and find out where the tram would go. Third step was to drag Gordon, if he was still unconscious, to the tram and get them both out of there.

Not a problem, providing he evaded the giant monster lumbering about along with whatever other freaks of nature were lurking inside.

"Okay Jonathan, calm down, you can do this. Unarmed and alone, this'll be real badass. I'll do this, save Gordon, save myself, get out of here and get completely tanked." He wiped sweat from his brow and took a deep breath. "Now one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, four to GO!" He shot into the open like a jackrabbit, sprinting for all he was worth for the far side.

The monster which had been standing around, its eye colored a dormant yellow, spotted him immediately. Eyeball/thing flashing red, it came at him quickly, far quicker than anyone would have expected of a dump truck-sized alien. Against his better judgment, Fisher looked behind him.

Adrenaline shot through his system as the ground shook beneath his feet and his eyes widened. "Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh SHIT!" he cursed frantically as he reached the entrance and dived in. Skidding across the cement for ways, he scrambled to his feet and around the corner where he plastered himself up against the wall for a moment to catch his breath and calm his pounding heart.

Well at least the monster wasn't doing anything drastic like smashing its way in to catch him. Taking a quick peek around the corner, Fisher saw the creature was apparently ambling back off to the center of the room. Feeling giddy with relief, a crazed grin spread across his face. "Yeah, screw you alien!" It wasn't the wittiest thing he'd ever said, but it felt nice to say.

So with a smirk on his face, Fisher headed off down the hall to find the control room. A sign reading TRACK CONTROL told him he was going the right away. Down the hall and around the corner, he took note to avoid a pipe jutting out of the floor sending a jet of white hot flame into the wall.

Ears perking up, he heard a familiar gurgling sound as one of the zapper aliens came around the corner. He immediately raised his Desert Eagle and pulled the trigger, resulting in a resounding _click_.

The alien saw him and seemed to bounce back in surprise. However it quickly began charging up an electric blast, green lightning building up in its claws. Dropping the empty pistol, Fisher leaped back around the corner just as it fired and blew a hole in the cement wall behind him.

Fisher pressed himself against the wall and drew his knife. "Come on you ugly little bugger, come here." He heard the thing taking a few cautious steps forward, it sounded close enough. Lunging out from cover, Fisher grabbed the alien which let out a surprised cry and swung at him.

Burning pain pierced Fishers mind as the sharp claws laid his cheek open. But training had taken over, he ducked under the aliens next swing and shoved his knife into its guts. Its ruby red eyes bulged forward as it let out a cackling scream. Ripping upwards through the tough skin, Fisher cut through what he presumed where its vital organs. The alien squirmed as it desperately tried to get away, but the strong marine held him in place until it died.

Pulling out his blade, Fisher looked up to see another zapper just ten feet away charging up a blast. "Oh shit." Without even thinking the marine pulled the corpse up before him just as the creature fired. The corpse shook violently as the electricity coursed through it. Then with the shot blocked Fisher flung the body forward and into its comrade, knocking it to the ground.

Cackling in surprise, the alien tried to get up to charge another blast, but Fisher was all over him. Grabbing it bodily by the throat, he lifted it off the ground and dragged it toward the pipe. Sensing his intentions, the alien squirmed and shrieked, all the while scratching uselessly against his PCV.

He reached the pipe and with a malicious grin, shoved its head down towards the jet of flame. In a last desperate effort to escape, it locked its legs down on the floor and tried to roll away. Kicking its legs out from under it, Fisher shoved its wailing head into the fire.

It died immediately as the flame burned through its skull, cooking the meat until it popped and threw burning chunks across the marine. Dropping the corpse and standing up, Fisher wiped off his knife and sheathed it before pausing to grin at his accomplishment.

"Damn I'm awesome; you don't piss around with a marine and get away with it! Oo-rah." Proceeding to the control room, he was halted when the walkway leading to the room crumbled to the floor on account of the monster outside stomping around.

As the dust settled, Fisher took a look down at the floor below him. A little ladder lead up next to the control room, some supply crates were scattered around, and there was a deal of head crabs wandering around as well. So with a shrug, Fisher pulled out his knife and dropped down.

One of the little monstrosities made a leap for his face the moment he landed of course. One quick slash took care of that, just in time to cut down the next one. The rest were further down the hall and apparently either weren't interested or just couldn't see him. "How the hell do you little buggers see me? You don't have any eyes; do you do that sonar thing like bats?" He scratched his head, maybe Gordon would know. But he was a physicist not a biologist, crap. Fisher should have paid more attention in science class. He shrugged, and headed up the ladder.

The door to the control room was blocked by some crates and boarded over, nothing some smashing with his pistol butt and boots couldn't solve. As the last two-by-four fell away the door hummed and hissed open by itself, leaving Fisher staring down the barrel of a Colt Python.

Fisher barely had time to exclaim 'Oh shit' before the wounded security guard fired. The .357 hollow point slug hit Fisher square in the chest and crumpled on impact; the kinetic energy sent the marine flying backwards and into the rail behind him. Another shot, the bullet blew his helmet off as he scrambled for cover.

Pulling himself up next to the door, Fisher took a moment to get his breath back while the guard alternated between cursing and coughing. He really did not want this, getting shot at by the people he wanted to help. Staying where he was, Fisher called out around the corner, "Hey don't shoot man I'm on your side." The guard snorted in disgust.

"Bull, you guys said that, and then just walked in here and started butchering people."

"That wasn't me; I'm not like those assholes, I'm not into all that cover-up crap."

"Like hell you're not!"

"Look, I'll give you my word." Fisher was running desperate here; he didn't know what else to say to poor guy. "I'm trying to help out a scientist from the Anomalous Material labs named, uh, Freeman, Gordon Freeman. He's knocked out in a room back a ways and I'm trying to get this tram moving so we can get out of here." There was silence for a moment as the guard took this all in.

"Toss your gun in here, and then come in slowly." Fisher let out a sigh of relief and tossed the empty pistol in across the floor before stepping around the corner slowly with his hands raised.

The guard was slumped up against a wall opposite of the door. Blood, both fresh and old, covered the floor around him. His face was white; he'd probably been in and out of shock a few times. The revolver was clutched tightly in his shaking hands, leveled right at Fisher.

"What the hell where you going to do with an empty gun?" The question caught Fisher off guard.

"Uh, throw it at the aliens?" The guard began to laugh but soon broke into a fit of coughing. Fisher moved to help, crouching down next to him to assess the damage. Carefully moving the guards hand away from his gut, Fisher wiped away some of the blood to get a good look at the wound.

A pair of bullet holes looked up at him from his abdomen, the hole that was courtesy of an M16. Fisher gulped, nothing he could do for the guy now. His thoughts immediately flashed to the syringes Gordon had got from that first aid station, his hand moved to where they were kept.

He pulled out one of the needles and was about to stick into the man's arm when the guard pushed it away. Fisher looked down at him in surprise; the guard was shaking his head slowly.

"No, you keep it. I'm finished anyway." Fisher shook his head, trying to reassure him.

"Don't dick around; we can get you out of here. Pile you on the tram and haul you off."

"No, this wall's the only thing keeping everything from spilling out. Now listen, I was told to stay here and try to help Doctor Freeman get that tram up and running. You say he's back there somewhere, right?" Fisher nodded. "Good, then it's your job now. You're going to have to get the generator up and running if you ever want to get out of here. Follow the hall on the bottom floor, you should find what you're looking for down there. Sorry if I can't tell you more, but I wasn't stationed here. Oh, and take my gun. You'll need it more than me." He skidded the pistol across the floor towards Fisher who picked it up gingerly. He didn't really know what to say.

"Uh, thanks. Here, take my gun." He kicked the Desert Eagle across the floor next to the guard who picked it up and grinned.

"Thanks, not sure what I can do with it. I guess I'll just have to bluff some soldiers into surrendering their guns."

"And what if an alien gets at you?" the guard grinned again.

"Well then, I'll take them down with my stunning good looks. Now get outta here, quick!" The guard shooed him away. Fisher turned to leave, but paused for a moment before turning back to the guard.

"Names Fisher by the way."

"Good to know, I'm Stevens. Now go! Oh, and take this, almost forgot." He produced a yellow box from his vest and tossed it to Fisher who caught it and took a look at it before grinning. It was packed with bullets for the .357. Heading out the door, he waved the gun in a salute to Stevens.

"Bye, and good luck!"

"You'll need it more than me, now ciao." And with that he was off. Descending the ladder and heading down the hall, Fisher paused to slice up a few more head crabs along the way. Turning on a generator, how hard could it possibly be?

"Nothing good is ever free." Fisher sighed as he heard the lift grinding down, doubtlessly bearing a load of soldiers. What he had hoped to be a relatively easy job had been marred by radioactive waste, aliens, soldiers, mines, and bolts of electricity.

After a good deal of shooting, running, diving, and praying Fisher had managed to restore power, some brick head had obstructed the gears for the generator with a bunch of crates and whatnot. Then he had switched on the power for the tracks, and apparently the soldiers disapproved with his activities.

Two marines came down the lift, rifles held at the ready. One spotted him immediately and jabbed a finger towards him.

"_Target sighted!"_ They opened fire, bullets whistled through the air as Fisher ducked and pulled the secondary trigger on his newly acquired M16. With a dull _thump _the 40mm contact grenade arced through the air and detonated right next to the lift. This set off the trip-mines which had been placed nearby, all combining into one tremendous explosion.

Standing up, Fisher moved in quickly, rifle ahead of him. The battered lift was starting its ascent back to the top floor, carrying some charred pieces of flesh apparel that had been two soldiers. Going around the lift area to the controls, Fisher waited for it to arrive at the top before calling it back down again.

Once down, he sent it back up, and just before it was out of reach, he dropped a pair of live grenades on it. The lift reached the top and the grenades exploded. Fisher called it back down, hopped on, and then sent it back up. He ignored the smell of cooked meat and crouched down in case he got into a fight.

He didn't. A young marine with a red beret lay fifteen feet from the lift, ripped in half. Paying as little heed he could to the pile of person on the ground, he gave the mess a wide berth. Clearing the hall, he checked out the door for any trouble.

A HECU gasmask appeared two feet from his face. Without even a moment of thought Fisher fired. So did the soldier, both were kicked backwards. Ignoring the jabbing pain of the bullet hitting his vest, Fisher jerked out of the line of fire, all the while shooting.

Jumping back against the wall, Fisher quickly reloaded. From the other side of the wall he could hear his opponent doing the same. Getting ready for round two, Fisher pulled back the charging handle just as he heard a distinctive sound. Shortly after, a menacing metal sphere bounced in next to him. "Shit."

He bolted out the door, surprising the marine, just as the grenade exploded. Falling over the rail, he flipped over and landed back-first on the descending ramp. His M16 had been lost in the fall, his hand darted for the Python just as the HECU grunt turned and raised his rife.

They both fired, but Fisher fired first. He emptied all six rounds in the chamber in the trooper, at least one of which burrowed through his head. The HECU soldier's own shots had gone wild, blasting the metal rail and the cement around it.

Laying there for a moment breathing heavily, Fisher got his breathing back under control and waited for his heart rate to slow down a bit, gun still shakily pointed at the dead soldier. "If I survive, I am going to be pissed if I don't get a box full of medals."

Sitting up, he span himself around and hung his legs over the ramp. Then he pulled out his nearly empty box of bullets and began reloading the revolver. Afterwards, he headed back the way he came.

Comparatively, the trip back to the control room was much easier than the trip from it. Only one of the zapper aliens and a few headcrab's had obstructed his passage.

He entered the room to see Stevens slumped down, eyes closed. He rushed over to check on him, but the guard cracked open one eye.

"Gotcha. You got the power on, right?" Fisher grinned.

"Sure did. Now I've just got to kill the monstrous alien, get Gordon, and we haul our asses out of here!" Stevens sighed sadly.

"Damn, wish I could come along. Oh well, it's been nice enough I guess." He cracked a grin. "Heh, at least I get a cool tombstone eh? 'Died fighting aliens. With a Magnum.' Don't get much cooler then that I guess." Fisher smiled, trying to go along with it. Damn, he wished he could bring Stevens along too. Suddenly the guards eyes widened. "Damn, I almost forgot! You've gotta turn on the track power!" Fisher shot him an irritated look.

"What was I just doing then?"

"No, no. You've got the power on, but you've got to activate the tracks power grid, otherwise that tram ain't going anywhere."

"Fine, where is it?"

"You know that other big entrance in the main tram chamber? Not the one with the track though. That's the one you want. Head down there and you'll find the main switch." Fisher rolled his eyes in frustration.

"Any ideas on how to get past our good friend out there?" Stevens shrugged.

"No, no sorry. You're on your own ther- He stopped in mid sentence, face frozen in thought. Slowly, he turned to fix his eyes on Fisher. A cold shiver went up Fisher's spine, and somehow he was sure he wouldn't like what Stevens was about to say. "You, you need a distraction. A diversion, draw that monsters attention away from you."

Fisher nodded slowly. "Yeah, but I don't have anything like that. I'm fresh outta grenades." Stevens slowly raised his hand and tapped himself.

"Me. You head out there, get ready to run. When you hear me shout at it, you run like all hell's after you." Fisher shook his head at this.

"No, no that would be suicide. Not letting you do that." Stevens look turned firmer.

"Damnit Fisher I was in med school for two years! I ain't a doctor but I know my anatomy pretty well! I'm not going to make it, not in this condition. Hell, I probably wouldn't make it if Doctor House himself appeared out of the heavens. I'm going to die, may as well not die rotting in a corner. Now hurry up, and go."

Taking a step back, Fisher took a long look at his friend.

"Sorry it turned out like this man. Damnit why are the bad guys winning this one?" Stevens coughed, and then gave Fisher a sad look.

"I dunno Fisher, but I have a feeling things are gonna get a lot worse before they get better, and not just for us. For everyone, for the entire world. But the scientists think they can fix this, and they need Freeman. So get out there, turn the track on, get Freeman outta here and fix this!" Fisher nodded slowly.

"Will do Stevens. It's been good knowing you, would've liked to buy you a drink sometime."

"Likewise, now go!" Fisher turned to leave, but Stevens halted him once more. "And Fisher? I feel like I should say this." He grinned. "Go get some for me!" Fisher returned the grin.

"Will do Stevens, will do." He gave a little salute, and then took off down the hall.

He stopped by the entrance to the big chamber, a sinking feeling in his gut as he waited. Leaning against the wall, Fisher checked outside on the monster. Yep, he was still there. Time went on, Fisher began to think maybe Stevens wouldn't be able to get to the window. He was considering heading back to check on him when,

"Hey! You! Yeah you! Over here you big alien cockroach!" Fisher bolted. The big alien turned to the source of the voice as Fisher reached the tunnel. Unable to help himself, the marine turned to look.

Stevens clung to the window edge, screaming for all he was worth. "Go Fisher! Go now!" The big alien lowered its hands. Fisher turned away as it fired, incinerating the brave guard. Trying to swallow his emotions, he looked up to see the big alien looking right at him.

"Oh shit." It began to charge, he began to run. He reached the end, and then hurled himself around the corner, ground shaking behind him. At the end of the tunnel he spotted a pair of big generator-looking things on either side. Bolting towards the end, he came to a stop and yanked himself up and over a rail.

Looking wildly around, he spotted a big switch marked TRACK POWER. Without hesitation he grabbed it and shoved forward. The generators began to hum; Fisher looked for a way out, a door! But now it was too late.

The massive alien stomped down the middle, arms leveled and ready to vaporize him. Strangely, Fisher didn't feel terrified. Just depressed, saddened. He didn't want to die, he just wanted to get out of here. But now it was all at an end, all the terror, the running, the fighting. Maybe this wasn't so bad, but what about Gordon?

Before he could think a thing more, a massive bolt of electricity shot from one of the generators and hit the alien dead in the side just as it fired its flamethrower hands. It was over in a second, the alien began to shriek as Fisher ducked. The jets of fire went of course, hitting the cement wall above him and burning clear through.

There was a sound like a pressure cooker blowing open followed by a spray of hot, steaming goo. Slowly rising to his feet, Fisher looked at the scene before him.

The alien had exploded. Chunks of mottled blue shell were everywhere along with steaming heaps of yellow glop. The rifle fell from Fishers hands, clattering to the floor. Turning around, mouth wide open, he saw the wall behind him was gone. Behind it was a bunch of pipes and wires and beyond that; there was a catwalk and a stairway.

Climbing into the hole, Fisher navigated cautiously through the hot metal and burned wires and onto the stairs. Climbing them, he came to a small rusted door which obviously hadn't been used in a long time; perhaps it had been built over?

It was locked of course, but it was also rusted terribly. A few good slams with a rifle butt knocked it down. Pausing to read a barely visible sign, Fisher managed to make out the words EMERGENCY VEHICLE DEPOT ACCESS.

Hope was beginning to rise in the marine as he made his way up another flight of stairs to a final door, this one unlocked. Opening it with a creak, he immediately found himself blinded by blazing sunlight.

He shielded his eyes, adjusting them to the brilliant light. Taking in his surroundings, Fisher raised his revolver, checking for enemies. He saw none, instead he saw a fenced in slab of concrete, and within that fenced in slab he saw a dozen or more parked Black Mesa SUVs. Close by was a sign stating BLACK MESA EMERGENCY EXIT TEN MILES

He heart almost stopped. Escape, these vehicles would allow them to escape. He rushed over to the nearest one, checking it for gas. It was full! Smashing the window, he opened the door with shaking hands. Climbing in, he checked for keys, he found these under the seat. Shoving them in, he almost took off then and there when he remembered.

"Oh crap, Gordon!"

Moving with the speed of adrenaline and excitement, Fisher rushed back through the hole and down the tunnels to where Gordon was. He was still unconscious, so Fisher had to throw him over his shoulder and carry him back to the SUV. Screw whatever the scientists wanted Gordon for, they were getting OUT!

Moving as fast as he could, Fisher was halfway up the stairs to the vehicle depot, excitement building rapidly. And then, it happened.

Everything stopped. All the surrounding noise was suddenly gone, and Fisher was suddenly aware of footsteps coming up behind him. Dropping Gordon and pulling his revolver in one smooth move, Fisher whirled around to fire. But what greeted him was no HECU soldier or alien.

He wore a suit and carried a briefcase. He looked human, but Fisher could somehow sense that whatever it was, it was not a human. His face was curled in a smile, but it was the smile of someone who had just caught someone doing something they shouldn't. Fisher fired.

_Click_. He checked his chamber, still full, a misfire? He fired twice more, _click, click_. And then before he could do anything more, the man spoke.

"Corporal Fissherrr, so good to meet you face, to face." The way he spoke reminded Fisher of a snake, slick and smooth. Even the way he put emphasis on the wrong parts of words brought a reptile to the marines mind. He tried to speak, and found out he couldn't. The man continued, regardless of this. "I have been observing your _progress _with no small amount of _interest_." The stairway vanished, leaving Fisher and the Man floating in seemingly empty blackness.

"I am glad, that we share an interest, you and I, in the longevity of Doctor Freeman." Gordon's face appeared from nowhere, floating up and away. "And while I admire your, _efforts_, to keep my subject in a state of, good health, I regret to inform you that, your actions, while seeming to be in the best interest for the, short run, may prove to have some rather," He smirked as he said this, "_unforeseen consequences." _

Images floated up past Fisher. An impossibly tall blue tower jetting out of a city. Dirty streets trodden on by people in blue denim outfits, monitored by others in ghoulish masks. Insect-looking things flying like a helicopter, and pouring blue fire down on a terrified people below. And through it all, eyes still closed, came Gordon's face.

It all vanished, the man kept speaking. "So, it is my _regret_ that I must, _avert_,your course elsewhere." He leered as he leaned in closer to Fisher, who was doing all in his power to reach out and throttle him. "You have a train to catch."

It all began to fade away, the darkness, the man. Gordon was still there, lying before the man who bended down to whisper in his ear, barely discernable to Fisher. "Rise and _shine_, Mister Freeman."

And then it was all gone. Fisher was suddenly aware of sitting on a wooden surface. He looked around for a moment, then leaped to his feet.

"What the hell?" He was in a tunnel again, on a tram, _the _tram, churning down an electric track. A moaning sound, Gordon was stirring beside him. Rubbing his head, he groggily got to his feet and adjusted his askew glasses.

"Fisher? Wha-what happened?" Fisher gulped nervously, what to say?

"Uh, well you see, you got knocked out when that pipe gave way. I had to get the power on for this tram to get it running, apparently the scientists need you for something important." He didn't have time for everything right now, and what Gordon didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Giving Fisher a strange look like he could see right through his lie, Gordon nodded slowly.

"Ok, then." Standing up, he looked ahead of the tram, which was about to round a corner. Fisher wiped the sweat off his head, silently cursing the man who'd stolen their shot at freedom.

* * *

_How was the really old writing? Review please, but to be honest I have no idea when the next chapter will ever breath. _

___Sorry for being a bad author, please feel free to egg me._


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